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William Henry Hurlbert\u2019s lengthy career as a newspaper writer and author was not iconic enough to rise above the history-making brutality of the Civil War and the crowded New York publishing scene. But with the release of history professor Daniel W. Crofts<\/strong>\u2019 A Secession Crisis Enigma: William Henry Hurlbert and \u201cThe Diary of a Public Man,\u201d<\/em> Hurlbert (1827\u20131895) has been granted a posthumous and historic credit: author of the aforementioned \u201cDiary,\u201d a significant and controversial piece of Civil War literature.<\/p>\n Finding the forgotten writer required years of high-tech analysis and old-fashioned library legwork. Luckily for Crofts he had two history lovers\u2014one, a student; the other, a statistician\u2014to help crack a mystery that had remained unsolved since 1879.<\/p>\n Rounding up suspects<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Crofts initially encountered \u201cThe Diary of a Public Man\u201d while researching his first book, Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis<\/em>, in the mid-1970s. Crofts, a Civil War expert, was intrigued by the document, which offered a behind-the-scenes look at Abraham Lincoln\u2019s presidency in the weeks before the war. The professor loved what the \u201cDiary\u201d captured: political maneuvering, memorable scenes (notably Stephen A. Douglas holding Lincoln\u2019s hat during his inaugural speech), and a human portrayal of the now-venerable \u201cHonest Abe.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cDiary,\u201d which ran in four installments in The North American Review <\/em>during 1879, had its doubters though\u2014Crofts included, who wound up not using it in his research for Reluctant Confederates<\/em>.<\/p>\n Another noted historian who questioned its authenticity was Frank Maloy Anderson. In 1948, he declared Sam Ward\u2014a lobbyist and failed poet\/writer\u2014as the author of the \u201cDiary,\u201d but said researchers should avoid using the document as a legitimate source.<\/p>\n \u201cThe irony, of course,\u201d says Crofts, \u201cis that people keep using it right through Doris Kearns Goodwin [author of 2006\u2019s best seller Team of Rivals<\/em>].\u201d<\/p>\n Crofts calls the \u201cDiary\u201d \u201cseductive,\u201d adding, \u201cYou have fascinating information which has turned out to be corroborated by material subsequently discovered [and] a diarist who vanishes into the ether like Alice\u2019s Cheshire cat.\u201d<\/p>\n It wasn\u2019t until 2001, when TCNJ history student Ryan Christiansen \u201902 <\/strong>re-examined the \u201cDiary\u201d as part of his senior thesis, that Crofts began his search for an author. To hear Crofts tell it, Christiansen got the ball rolling on the project. Christiansen respectfully disagrees, saying that Crofts suggested the \u201cDiary\u201d and \u201cI ran with the idea.\u201d<\/p>\n Christiansen\u2019s role was to collect source material of possible \u201cDiary\u201d authors\u2014including Hurlbert, who is mentioned briefly in Anderson\u2019s book, The Mystery of a \u201cPublic Man\u201d: A Historical Detective Story<\/em>. Crofts and his TCNJ colleague, David Holmes<\/strong>, professor of mathematics and statistics, would then examine the samples to determine if any matched the writing style of the \u201cDiary.\u201d<\/p>\n Christiansen was the first to see a connection between the writing style of Hurlbert, an editorial writer for The New York Times <\/em>and later an editor with The New York World<\/em>, and the diarist. \u201cI think I got your guy,\u201d he told Crofts during the 2001 fall semester. It didn\u2019t take long for Crofts to agree.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody who writes will quickly notice that Sam Ward [whom Anderson had pegged as the author] doesn\u2019t write like the diarist,\u201d Crofts says, \u201cand as you learn about Hurlbert and read his stuff\u2014which is voluminous\u2014the diarist writes likes Hurlbert.\u201d Specifically, both rely on alliteration and feature the same frequently used words, such as \u201cearnestly,\u201d \u201cdeplorable,\u201d and \u201cassurances.\u201d<\/p>\n Building a case<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n The \u201cDiary\u201d wasn\u2019t the first Civil War-era mystery that Holmes, a self-described \u201chistory buff,\u201d had investigated. He had used stylometry, the statistical analysis of literary style, to firmly conclude that letters long attributed to Confederate General George Pickett were actually written by Pickett\u2019s wife after the general\u2019s death.<\/p>\n The entire Pickett Letters Project lasted three years. Holmes\u2019 first attempt to statistically confirm Christiansen and Crofts\u2019 theory of \u201cThe Diary of a Public Man\u201d via discriminant analysis took several years. Christiansen and a team of statistics majors had to collect a large body of written material that had to be scanned or typed into machine-readable form. Multivariate statistical analyses then had to be validated by texts from known writers during Hurlbert\u2019s era before examining the actual \u201cDiary.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, says Holmes, \u201cYou can\u2019t look at the unknown until you are satisfied everything works on the known.\u201d From 2001 to 2005, he and his research associates examined the works of 10 candidates\u2014including long shots for the purpose of test runs\u2014before coming down to Ward and Hurlbert.<\/p>\n Holmes says it\u2019s best to view discriminant analysis as a form of categorization. \u201cThere\u2019s a Ward box and a Hurlbert box, and they are known to be of different styles,\u201d Holmes explains. \u201cYou take the \u2018Diary\u2019 and the technique tells you which of these boxes it falls into.\u201d When asked if the styles of the \u201cDiary\u201d and Hurlbert matched (or, to extend the analogy, fit) Holmes answers, \u201cEmphatically.\u201d<\/p>\n Not long after these promising results, the Delta technique hit the scene. According to Holmes, this technique computes measures of \u201ccloseness\u201d between texts using large numbers of non-contextual function words\u2014for example, but, to, and from. Collectively, Crofts says, those words create \u201cthe statistical fingerprint of the writer.\u201d Holmes spent part of his 2009 sabbatical using the Delta technique to explore his earlier findings. Again, there was no debate that the \u201cDiary\u201d had one author.<\/p>\n \u201cHurlbert was closer to the \u2018Diary\u201d than anyone,\u201d Holmes says.<\/p>\n Hurlbert \u201chad connections and could write well\u2026[but] wasn\u2019t a mover and shaker in a time of movers and shakers,\u201d Christiansen explained. \u201cFrankly, this is the reason he got away with it for so long.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time Holmes performed his second round of statistical detective work, Crofts had made his own discoveries about the \u201cDiary\u201d and its almost-anonymous author. Christiansen\u2019s thesis was turning into something bigger. \u201cIt\u2019s not often that undergraduate projects lead somewhere important,\u201d Crofts says. \u201cThis is a striking exception to that pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201ceureka moment\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Authorship of the \u201cDiary\u201d was firmly established, but there was still concern. \u201cUntil 2005, I was still uncertain of what we had here,\u201d says Crofts, who started research in 2002 and began writing A Secession Crisis Enigma<\/em> in fall 2005. \u201cIt was obvious that parts of the \u2018Diary\u2019 rang true. They are based on information that could simply not have been dreamed up or imagined. Time and time again, the stuff in the \u2018Diary\u2019 is validated or corroborated by subsequent research.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, the history professor kept asking himself, \u201cHow does the guy know this stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n Crofts\u2019 \u201ceureka moment\u201d came after reviewing Anderson\u2019s research at the Library of Congress in August 2005. The information in the \u201cDiary\u201d was real, Crofts discerned, but the diary and the diarist were literary devices. Hurlbert had constructed the \u201cDiary\u201d based on events that actually happened.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce I realized that,\u201d Crofts says, \u201ceverything fit.\u201d Hurlbert, a New Yorker, couldn\u2019t have been everywhere he claimed to be in the \u201cDiary,\u201d or have had such access to so many important people. He must have had an inside source, and the evidence pointed to one person: Sam Ward.<\/p>\n Ward not only lived in Washington, DC, he had a close relationship with one of the key figures in the \u201cDiary,\u201d Senator William H. Seward, Ward\u2019s next-door neighbor. Also, Ward and Hurlbert were inseparable friends. One of Ward\u2019s obituaries detailed how the two \u201cused to understand one another perfectly. They lived in a world of their own, very agreeable and slightly out of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s no \u201csmoking gun\u201d regarding this theory\u2014specifically, a letter written by Hurlbert or Ward mentioning the \u201cDiary\u201d project\u2014just a lot of common sense. \u201cThe kind of classic evidence that historians like only takes you so far,\u201d Crofts says. In reviewing the correspondence between Ward and Hurlbert, Crofts thought the term \u201cobelisk\u201d might be a code word for the \u201cDiary.\u201d It wasn\u2019t. Crofts discovered that Hurlbert led a successful campaign to get New York City an Egyptian obelisk; it has stood in Central Park since 1881.<\/p>\n Hurlbert\u2019s reputation as a blazing literary talent was established long before then. He was a genius with a flair for storytelling. As Crofts details in his book, Hurlbert was the chief editorial writer for The New York Times<\/em> by age 30 and was later editor-in-chief of The New York World<\/em>. He had a knack for languages, and was knowledgeable in drama, history, and literature. He was a familiar figure in literary circles, so much so that he was the basis for characters in three novels. Aside from importing obelisks and editing a major newspaper, Hurlbert wrote two books on Ireland and France.<\/p>\n Those lofty accomplishments came with a sad undercurrent. Never a classic newspaperman, Hurlbert\u2019s stint editing The New York World<\/em> was a flop, and not every fictional tribute was complimentary. Hurlbert was disdained in some New York social circles and openly pursued what was best for him, Crofts writes. That extended to his dealings with women, who flocked to the handsome raconteur only to find themselves repeatedly duped.<\/p>\n It all caught up to Hurlbert, Crofts writes in A Secession Crisis Enigma<\/em>: \u201cAn apparent compulsion to live by his own rules clouded his last years with scandal, so that he died in exile, a fugitive from the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Case closed<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Thanks to Crofts, Holmes, and Christiansen reintroducing Hurlbert to the world, it appears the debate regarding authorship of the \u201cDiary\u201d is over. Holmes would be \u201cvery surprised\u201d if someone revealed contrary evidence. \u201cI\u2019m very confident that it\u2019s settled,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n Christiansen, now a Pittsburgh-based district manager for an automobile company, feels that someone will take issue with the author\u2019s identity and the concept of a fake \u201cDiary.\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re still arguing the true intentions of people from Egyptian times and the Middle Ages,\u201d he says. \u201cThat\u2019s part of what makes grad school and undergrad so entertaining, because you get to go back and interpret the question. It\u2019ll be done again in another 40 years, another 100 years. No one is ever satisfied by what we currently have. The profession is based upon reinterpretations.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a valid point. Crofts and Christiansen did challenge Anderson\u2019s conclusion, then employed Holmes and his statistical analysis as a closing argument. But with all that done, Crofts now considers the case closed.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are two things working along parallel tracks here: The sort of common sense analysis of people who look for things like writing style and this quite interesting statistical procedure that Holmes uses,\u201d Crofts says. \u201cAnd they both lead us, ultimately, to the same place.\u201d<\/p>\n Illustrations (c) Danny Schwartz<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Through years of high-tech, statistical analysis and some old-fashioned library legwork, a team of TCNJ researchers has solved a Civil War\u2013era mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":2979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-september-2010"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"holmes\"](\"http:\/\/www.tcnjmagazine.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/tcnjholmesfinal-2.png\")
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